Collaboration computing environments often rely on data transfer from a source computing device to multiple destination or sink computing devices. For example, in educational environments, “classroom collaboration” relies on the transfer of files, video, and other data from the teacher's computing device to each student's computing device. Typically, multicast, broadcast, or other one-to-many data transmissions are used to effect such data transfer.
Unlike multicast or broadcast transmissions, unicast transmissions are one-to-one data transmissions (i.e., from a single source computing device to a single destination or sink computing device). Some communication devices and standards are optimized for or otherwise provide better service and/or reliability with unicast transmissions compared to multicast or broadcast transmissions. For example, some access points (e.g., a wired or wireless router, switch or hub) are optimized for routing unicast transmissions. Conversely, in a multicast transmission, the access point can become a “bottleneck” of the local area network (LAN) because the access point must transmit the data received from the source computing device (usually via a unicast transmission) to each sink computing device on the local area network. As such, the outgoing data rate from the access point is typically significantly lower than the incoming data rate from the source computing device. This disparity in data rates can cause the data queues of the access point to overflow resulting in lost data and delayed transmissions. These difficulties may be compounded in some network environments in which unicast transmissions are given a higher priority or quality of service over multicast transmissions. Further, many access point devices have default multicast settings that are not optimal, which can result in additional data transfer congestion difficulties.